Environmental Studies

My first full-fledged college course ever was Environmental Studies, back in the fall of 2002. (Freak-out moment: how did that get to be five years ago already??!) The course was taught by a visiting professor, and even as a freshman I could tell that he wasn't used to Simon's Rock discussion-style classes. It was barely controlled chaos, and I loved it.

My first semester was very much "sink or swim". I didn't drown, but it was a near thing. What I ultimately took away from the Environmental Studies course wasn't anything profound about the state of the natural world and human interactions with it; the course just whetted my appetite for more.

By the end of the semester, I realized that the focus of the class had largely been on the environment itself, and that my interest had more to do with the environmental ramifications of political policy and social behavior. I signed up for Introduction to Sociology in my second semester and was enthralled by the idea that social systems could be studied, albeit in a manner quite different from "hard" science or anything I had ever encountered before. That fascination would shape the remainder of my time at Simon's Rock.